Successful surgery
discharge
patient 2,207,451
age: 38. district: Naarm, north. reach: 90
procedure: nephrectomy, left. completed.
outcome: success.
account: 48,200.00. settled.
paper copy: 48.00. declined.She read it twice on the way to the lift, because the first time she had read it the way you read a receipt, and the second time she read the word left.
She had come in for the right one.
The lift was the old kind, steel, one of the two ceiling lights off. There was already a man in it. Dressing gown, hospital socks, a drip stand he held like an umbrella he was not sure he needed. A bottle of water in the other hand. Blue paint under one thumbnail, the kind that does not come off in a week.
— Going down? he said.
— Ground.
— I'm doing laps. — He pressed nothing. — They tell you to walk. So I walk. Four floors of corridor and a lift. It's a route.
The doors closed. The lift thought about it, then moved.
She scrolled. The screen was small and he was close, because the lift was small, and he read it the way people read over your shoulder on a tram, not meaning to and not stopping.
booking
procedure: nephrectomy, right.
next available: 14 weeks.
attendance risk: 61%.
non-attendance fee: 360.00. prepaid.— Sixty-one, — he said. — That's a line.
— It's a number.
— It's a line. Attendance risk. Say it slower. — He said it slower himself, trying it. — They've worked out the odds you won't turn up, and they've charged you for not turning up, in advance, in case you can't. That's the coldest thing I've read all year, and I've been in here since Tuesday.
She did not say anything. The lift passed three.
— Somebody wrote that, — he said. — Somebody sat in a room and chose the word attendance. You know that, right? There's a person.
— Is there.
— Has to be. A system doesn't pick words like that. A system says fee. A person says attendance.
He took a sip of the water. It was a real bottle, the sealed kind, and he held it the way people held them now, by the neck, with the cap in his fist.
— Want some?
— No.
— You should. Hydration. They go on about it upstairs. Most important thing.
The lift passed two.
— What did you have done? she said. She did not know why she asked. It was the lift. You asked.
— Kidney. — He said it like a win. — New one. Tuesday. Tuesday morning they ring and say come in, we've got one, it's in the building. In the building. Didn't even have to wait for a van.
She looked at the screen.
— Good match, apparently, — he said. — Best they'd seen in a while. The surgeon said that. I'm not making it up.
— Did they say whose?
— They don't tell you that. — He shrugged, and the drip stand shrugged with him. — Somebody in the building. That's all they say. I asked.
Her thumb moved on its own. Under the booking there was a third block, smaller, in the print that sits under a sponsor bar.
donor programme: enrolled (default).
recipient outcome: good.She read it the way she had read left. Once as a receipt. Once as a word.
— Mina reckons it's a story, — he said. His phone was out now, the bottle tucked in his gown pocket. — She wants a photo of the scar for the record. She keeps a record. Of everything. — He typed something with his thumb and put the phone away. — Says a kidney from a stranger in the same building is either a miracle or a plot and I'm not allowed to pick which until I've got more than one data point.
— And which is it?
— I know which I want it to be.
The lift slowed for one. Nobody got on. The doors opened on an empty corridor, the heating off, and closed again.
— Thing is, — he said, — the odds. A match in the same building the same week. What are the odds of that?
— Didn't they tell you?
— I didn't ask.
She looked at him. Paint under the nail. Hospital socks. Two days of corridor, and a bottle of water held like a thing that had been hard to get. He looked well. He looked like someone it had worked on.
Ground. The lift settled.
By the doors there was a panel, five grey stars and a line of small print. How was your care today. Your response is linked to your booking.
— Give them five, — he said. — Go on. They were good with me. Honestly. Can't fault them.
She looked at the panel. Fourteen weeks. Sixty-one.
She tapped five. The stars went warm, one after the other, and the panel said thank you.
— See, — he said. — Don't be stingy. People work here.
The doors opened. Cold came in from the foyer, and the sound of the street.
She picked up her bag.
— Dev, by the way.
She did not give hers.
— Good luck with yours, — he said. — The next one. You'll be right. Look at me.
She looked at him.
— Thanks, she said, and stepped out.
The doors closed on him pressing nothing, going back up to do his laps, the bottle out of his pocket again, held by the neck.
In the foyer the screen in her hand had already moved on.
discharge complete.
thank you for choosing us.
see you in 14 weeks.